


A Moment for the Sake of a Moment

by a_spn_off



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, End of Show, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Heaven, Original Character Death(s), Peace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_spn_off/pseuds/a_spn_off
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story takes place an unclear amount of time in the future but long after the lifespans of the Winchester's and all they know are over, told somewhat in Castiel's point of view. A future where Heaven has experienced a great change....</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My first fanfic!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment for the Sake of a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty fluffy, sappy version of how I would like to believe these characters will all end up. And I'm a sucker for happy endings.
> 
> I don't write in any frequency, and this is my very first fanfic! I have watched Supernatural from episode one back in '05 and I finally hit a point where my brain needed to justify an eventual end to the show. This idea popped into my head rather concretely, so I wrote it down! I Hope it gives you the fuzzy feels reading it as much as it did for me writing it :)

“I like what you’ve done with the place.”

 

“That means a lot to me.” Hannah smiles, keeping her eyes on the forest path as they walk. Fallen leaves and twigs decorate the ground, grumbling softly as they come under footfall. The two angels are surrounded by trees that bear the vibrant hues borne of a spring rain. It is not overly sunny here, but still pleasant. Calm. 

Cas looks down at the path, taking his eyes from the wooded scenery. He dwells on all that Hannah has done; her achievement, her vision; with the admiration of a friend for the success of a friend. She has done so much for Heaven, more than he would ever believe he himself could have. She is exactly what Heaven needed, and what it deserved, he considers reverently. 

“You know we would love for you to join us as we continue…” Hannah says, lifting her eyes from their route, interrupting Cas’s thoughts. She slows her pace, eventually stopping, watching him. He looks up as well when he notices her stop, slowly meeting her gaze. He too stops, a couple of short paces ahead of her. 

For a few seconds, they almost appear to internally explore the nature of the other’s intent. For an angel, this of course would be more than enough time to consider and conclude; for these two, now, it is simply a lack of haste. A moment for the sake of a moment. 

She glances past his shoulder, farther down the trail. When her eyes flit back to his, her smile softens, a kind of ‘needless to say’ expression on her face. 

The small distance he holds ahead of her is his answer.

“…But we know where you are meant to be.” 

Cas turns to look down the path as well, for just a moment, then turns back to his friend. 

“I will visit again soon.” He says. A lazy, crooked smile adorns his face. Hannah nods, so slight, and closes her eyes. It occurs to Cas that it is the faintest shadow of a bow. Not to him of course, but to his choice.

His admiration for her work is matched only by hers for his unwavering resolve to his decision. A decision that, it occurs to her, has been in the works for him to come to for millennia. 

She wonders if he thinks of it as she does; through all the unimaginable pain, sacrifice, and loss; after giving up so much, everything, for those around him, only receiving betrayal and death as reward; after traveling down all of the impossible roads he has come to, his choices donned in a heavy veil of conflict resolution... Now, finally, a road lies in front of him that is uncomplicated, and without burden. 

…Of course not, she thinks. Castiel does not reason in this way. For him, it is simply another place where he is ‘needed’, another place in eons of places where his presence has been requested. It is hardly different to him, she contemplates, and this comes to her with a touch of sadness. 

But ultimately, reassuringly, this need is pure. He is not needed for a favor, for a fight, for leverage, or for a cure. He is not needed as means to an end, where his existence is carried by a hollow necessity, lacking in it after the fact. His days of mission, of service, are long over. He has done more than enough.

No, he is needed here, simply, because he is loved. 

Hannah likes to believe, somewhere deep in Castiel, he distinguishes between these needs, feels the difference, and knows that he deserves it… even if he is too humble to admit it to himself.

With this idea, and the solace it brings, gilding her thoughts, she goes to turn away. 

“See you around, Castiel.” She smiles fondly at him, one more time, and is gone.

Cas watches her as her form ceases to be, lingering in her previous direction for a few moments. He turns and slowly starts walking again, continuing farther down the path they have just come. His eyes are fixed now on neither trail nor trees. His gaze is simply forward, face still adorned by that lazy smile. 

 

After a short while, he reaches a driveway. He stops, just a beat, to look up at the old Montana cabin. Like the forest, the dwelling’s colors are vibrant, though not garishly so. The wood is rich, dark, and weather worn. A deep, soft moss layer covers the lower parts of the house, heaviest at the bottom and scanter as you look up, as if it had been splashed there by constant ocean waves. The place is simultaneously beautiful and comfortably familiar. 

This house, like many of the other places he frequents now, is a soothing sight. Regrettably, it is also touched with the slightest darkness somewhere deep in the memory is has been constructed on. In the past, these places’ requirement often coincided with something being terribly wrong. A gathering here was a pre-war rally, or a bloody intervention.

That was probably more of a rule than an exception, he realizes, a notion of sympathy for those times coming over him.

But he does not dwell on it. Regardless of the reasons he ended up here, it was always to be with the people he held so dear. While circumstance was not always ideal or kind, being with them always felt like the right answer. 

It does now, more than ever.

He approaches the porch, each step bringing the sound of the activity within better into focus. As he finally reaches the door and opens it, the noise amplifies instantly, like lifting the hood of a humming car to the expose the roar of the life within. 

The people he now stands before look in his direction, not all simultaneously, and not with overwhelming exhilaration. A classic rock station plays softly, somewhere in the background.   
Most of the occupants quickly return to whatever had held their attention moments ago, simply regarding Cas with fond glance for a breath or two. He is in no way estranged, a long gone friend dropping in after an extended absence. He is home. 

“Cas! Welcome back to the party, man. How was the family reunion?” 

One person out of the group does approach him, his demeanor slightly more enamored than the rest at Castiel’s return, his green eyes lit up. To Cas, they are more vibrant than that moss on the house, more vibrant than those leaves on the trees. They are the epitome of the brilliance of heaven’s atmosphere. 

“It was nice.” Cas says simply. Dean reaches him, nonchalantly draping his arm over Cas’s shoulders; an easy, familiar move for both of them.

“Good to hear.” Dean says softly, looking at Cas’s face, lingering his green eyes on blue for just a moment. A moment for the sake of a moment. 

“You’re just in time to help me beat Sam at poker.” Dean says, steering Cas over to the couch. The two approach the familiar red cushions, joining Sam, who now looks marginally offended. An old folding card table sits in the center of a haphazard circle formed by the couch and a number of mismatched chairs dragged in from the kitchen. The table is ever so slightly too high, littered with bent playing cards and empty beer bottles. 

Ash and Bobby occupy two of the chairs around the table. Bobby lazily regards Cas and Dean as they plop down on either side of Sam, taking a long swig of his beer. Ash stares at his cards with the intensity of someone who may or may not be on the brink of a brilliant scientific breakthrough. 

“I doubt that I would be able to beat Sam…I’m not very good at poker, remember?” Cas looks across Sam to Dean. Sam joins his gaze towards Dean, eyebrows raised, his expression portraying his lack of amusement with Dean’s jab. 

“You’d probably be able to _if he didn’t cheat all the time_ ,” Dean mumbles the last few words, hushed, out of the side of his mouth, not taking his eyes off of the cards in his hand. Sam swiftly punches him in the shoulder.

“OUCH. Bitch.”  
“Jerk.” 

Dean glances sideways at Sam and smirks. Sam looks back at his hand, shaking his head, his mouth twisted into a grin that he is failing to stifle. 

Cas looks up at the sharp sound of a shriek. He looks back over his shoulder into the kitchen. Ellen and Jo, backs turned to him, are raiding the fridge, lightly shoving each other and giggling as they try to overpower the other’s arm extended inside. Charlie walks into view from the other side of the room, stopping in the threshold to lean against the frame between the two spaces. She throws a thumb over her shoulder in their direction, her eyebrows elevating for a moment… _“These two...”_ she seems to say. Cas breaths a laugh. He turns back and meets eyes with Bobby, who rolls his, the corners of his mouth tugging up just so. 

 

\----

 

Long ago, before the fall, Heaven had been each soul’s personal paradise, a place for them to enjoy their greatest memories or hobbies in peace for the rest of eternity. This was a relatively easy design, made simpler by keeping the paradises self-contained, a construction only diverted from while making the rare exception. 

During Hannah’s time on earth, especially her time with Castiel, her views on many things had been shifted. She had watched how Cas, and the people he now called his friends, his family, revolved around one another. Their trials and tribulations, their happiness, their sense of being, all depended solely on the people with which they shared this bond. Through all of their lives, that bond has been their most pure and absolute form of happiness. And this had been her inspiration.

Upon her return to heaven, she had wasted no time attempting to recruit the others to her new-found vision. She tried to make them understand, to explain to them what she had experienced, _felt_. This, it turned out, was the hardest step of all. A great change, a complete _remodel_ of the Heaven they had known since the beginning of time, was the last thing any of the angels desired after what they had just been through.

After a long while however, some started to come around, allowing themselves to understand that now might be a better time than any for an overhaul. More and more tried to understand Hannah’s plea, to relate to Castiel’s story and the journey he had been on. To show true compassion for the humans that it had always been their duty to safeguard. Slowly but surely, they began to join Hannah’s great crusade to create a new paradise.

And thus, the Heaven that now reigned stood as so: What once had been an infinity of separate cells, adjacent but secluded, had been transformed into a fluid network of doors and windows, passageways and trails; the spaces not completely fused, but perfectly accessible, for those who preferred it that way. Where there had been barricades, there now stood paths, entwining heavens together, allowing their inhabitants to travel between them as they pleased. 

This fluidity was a complicated model, without a doubt. Maintaining the connections, building them, up-keep of their proper overlap, often proved a tedious job for the angels. But as the vision was realized, it became apparent that what they had done would be one of the greatest accounts in the course of their history. 

 

\----

 

The people gathered in this room only knew the abbreviated version of the story, Cas mused. But it was, of course, not necessary for someone to know the history of every nail and shingle that constructed their home, was it? Besides, these particular souls seemed perfectly worthy of finally being able to take happiness at face value.

So here he sat, immersed in this new heaven that his friends, his family, had together inspired. The pride and love he felt for them was overwhelming. 

Sometimes they were here at the cabin, but not always. Sometimes the scene was Bobby’s house, other times the Roadhouse; all places each of these bonded souls held dear were part of their own self-induced labyrinth of nostalgias. 

The souls who now occupied the cabin were the most constant, almost never here or there without the others. Occasionally, there would be more who would come, or who those here would leave to see. John, Mary, Jess, Kevin, and Pamela were all regulars who made an appearance now and again. 

Cas always loved seeing them all together. Meeting those he had not known during their life, or seeing those who had not known one another become acquainted, was especially enjoyable to him. When Charlie and Kevin had first met, no one would had suspected anything other than the lighting-fast friendship that was forged. Their joking and antics were a force to be reckoned with so much so that Cas could feel heaven itself pulse with their energy when they were together.

None of the connections in this web, however, could or would ever rival Sam and Dean’s. The pair’s presence, no matter the scene, added an almost tangible effervescence. To finally see them together, completely, finally, free of the tribulations that they spent a lifetime failing to escape; to see them look at one another without mistrust, without doubt, only the pureness of the bond that both Heaven and Hell could never succeed in breaking; This was the Cas’s greatest joy of all. 

And so this is how their stories, their collective legend, if you will, would both conclude and forever continue. The unbreakable connection that they all shared in life had borne the plan for a new Heaven; a Heaven that even in its grandeur was only just starting to learn how to replicate what had come so easily to this collection of souls all their lives.

During life they had shown the world, time and time and time again, that no obstacle, no problem, no literal hell, would be able to break this bond they shared. Even as each one eventually faced the end, it was always to the song of an act, of an entire existence, summarized by selflessness and love dedicated to the others.

It was this that Hannah had seen in them, it was this that had changed her. This had proved to be the ultimate epiphany she experienced about the nature of the world. 

Paradise was not rooted in a place, a hobby, or a singular memory. It was not a describable instance or repetitive event. It was not a tangible object or a concrete location.

Paradise was in everything, every passing second that they shared, which now held no greater purpose to hauntingly loom over them.

It was in every moment, each now purely for the sake of the moment.

All that these souls needed to experience paradise, was each other.


End file.
